Principles, Principals, & Agents

Have you heard about Joaquin Jackson?

He's the member of the National Rifle Association's Board of Directors who wrote this book and who stated a few years ago in a media interview (view the key video clip here) that he believed that "assault weapons need to be (only) in the hands of the military and the police." Jackson also noted in the same interview that civilian possession of such weapons should be restricted to limit magazine capacity to five rounds or less.

Last month, an NRA member began a petition drive to recall Jackson from his NRA Board membership, based on these statements. Assuming that this member submits the required 450 minimum signed petitions to NRA HQ, with at least 100 from each of three states, Jackson will have to face a recall election next spring by the entire qualified NRA membership (i.e., all life members, plus regular members who have been members for at least the last five consecutive years). In order for your signature on the recall petition to be effective, you must be one of those qualified members.

I urge everyone to think hard and vote their consciences here. Let me begin by saying that I am sure that Ranger Jackson was a good Texas Ranger, and I bear him no personal animus - that is, no more than I bear towards any elitist who believes that they are "the Only Ones" fit to carry weapons that are routinely denied to me and other Americans. I also know many patriots who have resigned from the NRA or who have let their NRA memberships lapse because of the organization's too-cozy D.C. shenanigans. While I understand your decision, it has the unfortunate effect of removing you from this fight.

To those who still belong to the Association and who are qualified to participate in this recall, please consider the following:

1) Military-style individual weapons are precisely the kind of arms guaranteed to all U.S. citizens by the Second Amendment, if the amendment's text, its procedural history, the statements of the Founders, and virtually all case law until the past forty years have any meaning at all.

2) Therefore, support for any sort of "assault weapon" restriction, either by weapon or magazine type, is support for a profound infringement of the Second Amendment. I would submit that failure to grasp this fundamental principle is grounds for immediate removal from any gun-rights group.

3) Just as importantly, every single employee, officer, director, and contract lobbyist working for the NRA is nothing more than an agent, serving at the pleasure of their principals, the NRA membership. One of the Association's most corrupt aspects is their ongoing "we know better" attitude towards the membership, as exemplified most recently by their inexcusable support of Representative McCarthy's veteran's disarmament bill.

If the NRA is nothing more than a shadow pseudo-governmental bureaucracy, doing whatever it wants to its members whenever it wants to do so, then just click off this entry and go back to your hunting magazines. You'll be really happy, starting in 2009....

I and other voting members will continue to insist that we, the membership, are the principals within the organization. As such, the NRA staff - regardless of rank or title - must do our bidding as our agents - nothing more and nothing less.

4) Accordingly, any NRA staffer - including but not limited to Ranger Jackson - who isn't down with the "Second Amendment means what it says as it is written" program is no longer fit to serve as our agent in defending the Second, along with the rest of the Constitution.

Please review the linked material, and if you agree, sign and submit the petition per the instructions. Next spring, you'll be asked again to help in getting the qualified membership at large to vote in favor of Ranger Jackson's removal.

Really, people - if the folks you hired to paint your garage instead tore up your backyard to install a horseshoe pit, would you tolerate it?

Don't ever tolerate anti-gunners on the NRA Board, no matter what good deeds they may or may not have done in the past.

It's a matter of principle.

UPDATE: A reader pointed out that Ranger Jackson "repudiated" that remark last summer. Read the statement attributed to him after watching the video clip linked above, and then you be the judge.

UPDATE #2: Jeff82 has put together a dedicated blog to help publicize this effort and to track progress. Please give him your support as we try to make a difference on behalf of the Second Amendment.